Gaskell Wives and Daughters|volume=II|chapter=Brightening Prospects|page=34|passage=And he kept shaking Mr. Gibson’s hand all the time till he had placed him, nothing loth, at the well-covered dining-table.
1884, w:Julian Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife: A Biography, Between the windows looking upon the lake hangs the great looking-glass, over the Pembroke dining-table.
1898, Q. pseudonym; w, A Pair of Hands: An Old Maid’s Ghost-Story, Did I wish the roses renewed in a bowl upon the dining-table, sure enough at the next meal they would be replaced by fresh ones.
Wells Patty at Home|page=139|passage=So Patty rested, until Pansy came and called them to a most appetising little lunch spread very simply on the dining-table.
1929-12-28, Correspondence: A Letter from Oberammergau. the Editor of the Spectator., Local custom gives us an “Advent Tree†or “Advent Wreathâ€: the trees are diminutive Christmas trees, which bear one candle for each Sunday in Advent; the wreaths are wooden rings with as many holes as there are days before Christmas Eve, decorated with fir green, and gay ribbons, and hung up over the dining-table, one candle being added every night till the circle is complete.
1932, Alec Waugh , That American Woman , He saw marriage as a settling down to the serious business of life; a settling down that was symbolized in the large stuccoed house in St John's Wood Park, with its long mahogany dining-table, its family portraits, its oak-panelled smoking-room, its leather-bound books running in long, dusty rows from floor to ceiling; its drawing-room whose heavily brocaded windows looked out on a trim garden, its thick carpets, its kitchened basement, its high, wide bedrooms, its airy nursery.
1944, w:Emily Carr, w:The House of All Sorts, The dining-table, uncollapsible and highly varnished, the piano, the chesterfield, stuffed chairs and a few sofas made a foundation on which to heap lesser articles.
1993, Margaret YorkeMargaret Beda Nicholson, Dangerous to Know, Perhaps, she thought now, polishing Theresa’s dining-table, we could go to some of those people who help you, be counselled; ... “And Hermione’s plate, soiled but with no food on it, as if she had eaten, was on the dining-table,†said Karen, who had seen it.
